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Mother 3 Handbook

From June 2008 to February 2009, I worked steadily on 46 figurines, one painting, and one illustration based on game sprites from Mother 3, a GBA game from 2006. This is the much anticipated sequel to the very unique 1995 Super Nintendo game, EarthBound (or Mother 2), created by Shigesato Itoi.

EarthBound is my favorite video game and I spent many happy hours watching my brother (Steve) play it while I thumbed through the handy player’s guide. The guide had illustrative clay models of almost every character and enemy in the game. I studied each page and it was a great source of inspiration for me.

After waiting 10 years for the sequel, Mother 3 was only released in Japan, so a small group of very talented fans translated the game and released a patch for english speakers. The folks at Fangamer thought the experience wouldn’t be complete without a player’s guide to complement the game and created the Mother 3 Handbook. This book is an art-filled 240 page guide with clever and entertaining writing, packed with game facts, secrets, and stats.

It was an honor to be a part of this project and have my work featured alongside the work of Emilio Orsi and Sebastian Hardy; all brought together with Jon Kay’s mastery of design. I feel that I’ve really improved as an artist these past 9 months and I enjoyed every moment of it. Working on this book with Reid (my husband) who did a lot of the writing, my brother, and many good friends has been excellent.

I’ll look back on this project with fond memories because once again, a Mother game has brought my brother and me closer and allowed us to work together. Thanks to Steve Campos, my figurines are perfectly cut out of their backgrounds and appear blemish free and ready for print. His Photoshop skills and laser-like focus and attention to detail are amazing! Thanks Steve!

Most of these figurines were made with 10-year-old scraps of Sculpey III polymer clay and painted with acrylics. The tallest is 4.5 in and the smallest is 1.5 cm tall. On average, each took 12.7 hours to make.

35 thoughts on “Mother 3 Handbook”

Your art is gorgeous and fantastic, and I greatly look forward to your future works. The handbook looks incredible, and I’d like to buy one despite having already beaten the game, just so I can see all this art adorning its pages. Mr. Genetor is one of my favorites of these; annoying boss, gorgeous clay art! The dragon-head design of the Needle was a stroke of genius, and everything is just mind-blowing. Much applause!

Your work is amazing. I had no idea what mother 3 was so I followed all your links. I never played earthbound much but this really makes me want to dive and order the guide it is amazing. Your figures help it tremendously. I am on the hunt for the Japanese version now. Would be great in a gameboy micro i think.

Absolutely incredible. How well you captured each one of these characters is indescribable, and the Mother community is so lucky to have you and your artistic talent with them. The handbook turned out amazingly, and I hope to see more of your work in the future.

I actually saw this post a few days ago and was totally blown away. Unfortunately I’ve been pretty busy at work & home so I haven’t had time to fully read the post (let alone comment). I planned to save it for the weekend but judging by how few posts have already been left I feel it’s important enough to set time aside for now on my lunch.

First and foremost I need to say – fantastic work! Like, seriously! I’m surprised this doesn’t have pages of comments because this is by-far some of the best work I’ve seen in any fandom, especially in such a complex medium to work with. And it’s not just that you did forty-friggin-six models (wow) but that they’re all SO well done. The detail on some of them just leaves me in a state of shock and giddiness all at the same time. I mean, I love MOTHER to no-end and this is just these are just the most amazing mother-related fandom I’ve ever seen (right beside the actual translation, of course – heh).

I actually wasn’t able to pre-order the handbook myself – I was having some serious financial issues – but my totally-awesome friend Christine pre-ordered it on my behalf for my birthday (without telling me of course!). I just got the book about a week ago and to be completely honest, when I first got the book I didn’t know what to do with it. The quality and care that went into it was overwhelming – I was almost afraid to touch it and ruin it! On-topic though, when I opened the book and saw just how amazing all the models were (and illustrations) I knew that the book would be my absolute favorite piece of game-related merchandise ever and it totally still is.

I guess the main point of this comment is to let you know just how awesome your work is (as well as everyone else on the team of course) and that I totally respect you and how much you’ve accomplished in such a short time. I’m even inspired by you.

I really love the artwork you did and well, you see I’m undergoing a fan project myself. But I lack the money to pay for anything since my family is well undergoing rough times along with everyone else here. But anyways, if you heard of a fangame called “Mother 5″, that’s my little project I’m working on. Unfortunely, it hasn’t made much progress, but it’s still going on. I am however looking for some model art atleast and if you want to help me out, that’s great. If not, I completely understand and I hope you keep up the fantastic work!

I found your work while on a google search for “polymer figurines” as I am working on a few myself that I plan to create as originals for resin castings. Thank you so much for making these! You have given me a whole new perspective and an entirely new set of criteria to draw my inspiration from.

Hi,this is Frank Fullilove,just discovered your web-site on google and i must say this blog is great.may I quote some of the article found in this web site to my local people?i am not sure and what you think?in any case,Thank you!

exquisite work. I too share your love of creating video game characters from clay. There’s noting like having your very own real life version of something you love in a game! I also heard a little rumor of one of your recent works to my favorite game of all “TIME”… Very very excited about this….

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